How to Surrender with Courage & Grace?

Sometimes life is freeking hard.

And I don’t mean missing out on the promotion we deserve, or the horrid fallout with your husband. I’m talking about situations that seem unfathomable. The stuff that makes even the most positive person ask to the skies “What The Actual Freek”?!

This post may challenge some of you and trigger a few others and I’m sorry if that turns out to be the case. But I’m also not.

If we can be open to a challenge and see alternative viewpoints that perhaps weren’t apparent before, then maybe, just maybe, there may be a benefit to it.

Some of our wounds (and associated beliefs) go deep, which means that we have to be brave enough to recognise the need for a deep dive.

Did you realise that humans are the only creatures on our planet that have the wonderful ability of emotional association? 

Meanings are connected to feelings we experience and those emotions (energy in motion) is what makes each of us unique… and what makes life so difficult.

Most of us want to get through the yucky emotions quickly (although some troubled souls are addicted - without realising - to theirs). The desire to move past the heavy, draining times can often mean we miss the whole point of them coming up at all.

I’d like to share with you how I personally got through the trifecta of shitty phases of my life, achieving more and more grace and flow with each one.

ACCEPTANCE?

We pay lip service to a lot of words (don’t even get me started on ‘authenticity’) without identifying the meaning and application to our lives. Acceptance is one of those words we hear a lot.

But I believe there is more than simply accepting what is happening in your life, in fact, I would encourage you not to ‘accept’ but rather surrender.

To me ‘acceptance’ is a form of releasing responsibility (yes I’m going to go there).

When I was a child, I had to accept the abuse, he was the adult and I was the minor. I didn’t really have a choice, so acceptance wouldn’t be appropriate, however, I did learn how to surrender in those dark moments. To use my mind to take me somewhere else, to surrender my body to the physical world and escape to the spiritual world (not that I knew that was what I was doing back then). 

In later years I learned how to surrender complete responsibility for it happening at all, but (of course, there is a but) to also take responsibility for how it was going to affect my life going forward.

Through self-development, I realised the power I had access to, during those atrocious exchanges, and the strength it took to detach the mind from the body.

*Note: This strategy isn’t always useful for all challenges, many of us use physical disassociation in the forms of alcohol and other state-altering approaches and I definitely don’t recommend them as a long-term solution. 

BUT WAIT, THERE’S MORE

Going through my back injury I had to learn how to surrender my independence. How to take responsibility for my health by not pushing or being frustrated when I couldn’t do what I wanted. I absolutely believe that this is how I got off the pain meds and allowed the disc to regulate and recede so quickly.

Hearing the diagnosis of cancer was the same but different. There are many reasons to be highly respectful of cell mutations and the possibility of what they can mean for the future, it was time for next-level reflection and surrender.

Apart from the intellectual/spiritual conflict that took weeks to align, there was the bigger more philosophical “What was the point of it coming into my body, life at all” conversation going unanswered.

It didn’t really take long for the answers to start coming - when I stopped listening to all of the external advise and loving suggestions extended to me.

Somewhere halfway through my chemo, there were statements being made for me ‘to surrender’.

But surrender to what?!

It’s a question that at its deepest level has been whirling around in my mind for quite a while. I gave up needing to be in control years ago. I couldn't grasp what I still needed to give up!

• I had given up the need to only self-heal spiritually
• I had given up the need to push through and ‘conquer’
• I had given up the need to do it on my own - ie hold onto my independence
• I had given up the need to blame my past
• I had given up the need to even find insights and just address each day as it came

So what was I missing?

Like all great inspirational thoughts, it did come eventually, when I stopped ‘trying’ for the answer (ie I surrendered the search and just let it come to me - ha!)

With the help of my spiritual team in its many forms, I was able to find insights that went waaaay beyond the here and now.

I was still attempting to serve others, I still had the need to be needed. I hadn’t completely accepted the soul's ability to receive. My identity as a healer was so strong I forgot that I can pause that part of myself and ‘just do me’. Yes, I got to benefit from my client healing sessions but rather than spontaneously having sessions, I was putting on the business face more than was of benefit.

It was time to surrender the need to be ‘the public me’ all the time. It was time to absolutely be the observer of my life movie, rather than the leading lady.

Aaahh this made sense. Whilst I was receiving support and love from my amazing King and fiancee Regan, I still struggled to stop and receive in all of the feminine aspects. (It was at this point I also released a dark entity spirit that had gotten inside my life force and having a party at my expense).

Life started to get easier on a day-to-day basis.

As I surrendered ‘having to still be working, still having to financially contribute, my energy started to increase. Sure, I still had physical side effects but I gave up the added pressure I had been putting on myself.

By recognising and having the courage to put on hold the part of my masculine identity that was ‘doing-the-do’ I found new ways of gently spending the downtime on creative and other projects.

FINDING NEW FLOW

So what was I telling myself before that changed? Well, I felt that surrender was along the lines of

• Giving up
• Accepting i.e. dismissing reality
• Rolling over to the Big ‘C’
• Losing
• Not being accountable

Rather than considering it as surrendering and constantly looking to the future ie wanting to get through this part of my life as quickly as possible (which is only natural), I reframed my mindset to ‘changing the game plan’ or ‘altering my current course’.

By shifting my thinking to stop focusing on the benefits it was bringing, to simply enjoying the downtime today, with all of my ailments and side effects. I couldn’t speed up time or fast forward my days, so I ‘surrendered’ to the best way I could spend my time.

Funnily enough, the weeks sped by from this point! Some projects got completed that had been sitting to the side for months! With grace and empathy for myself, I would tick off whatever inspired me from my list.

Sometimes it was a slightly more hands-on job that I spread over a couple of days, others were quick wins when I was really lethargic. The satisfaction was immense and it felt that rather than surrendering I was taking my power back.

The feminine, creative, crafty part of my mind started to come out to play again. I was finding flow in other areas of my life and before I knew it there were only a couple of treatments to go.

Ironically that was when time really did seem to speed up.